A Living Family: Mamatography 2012: A Year in Pictures

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

February 16The Story: Finally! Big sister gets something that resembles a kiss well enough that she feels elated to the point of stillness.

February 17The Story: I've been waiting for a while to see when she will use just one of the four slots to balance her tower tower tower. That time has come. I saw a picture of someone's playroom that had lego plate wals with legos all over. I got so into this idea. My husband wonders if we need more stuff. We both acknowledge, however that she is incredibly engaged with building and has the manual dexterity to begin exploration of the smaller level with acceptable frustration and no inhalation. (Those parts can be tiny!) We also each had childhoods with much time spent building with legos. Still, we'll see if the mini lego wall idea will become a reality. There is a baby who will be crawling about before we know it.

February 18The Story: A friend brought my daughter (and the family) a worm composting bin for her birthday -- coolest gift, right?! She was scared to touch the worms, but subsequently she came to tell me that there was a mess near the big plant pot. She had gone digging for worms and thrown dirt on the rug. Notice she didn't say who made the mess. She said she didn't know when I said "I wonder who made this mess?" Lucky for her there were lots of other children who could have been possible culprits. Even so, when I asked if she made the mess she said yes. Then I asked if she had fun. ;)

The Story: I just thought this was a cool picture because my daughter is in the background standing on the couch. Does anyone else let their children climb on the furniture?

February 19The Story: This girl decided the Buddha statue was a baby. The baby was tired and she laid him down and cooed him to sleep.

February 20The Story: My daughter is in to blankets. I don't know why, but every piece of cloth has the potential to be a blanket. Here she has put every piece of fabric from this random bag of fabric samples we found one day. Every. Single. One. Plus a bunch of others. The icing on the pupcake (as my daughter calls them) is that she gets to recline in her favorite spot: the baby car seat.

The Story: Had to put more than one photo today, too because this house is the coolest! Curtains and a trap door! Tia made it when she was watching my daughter. She plays in it less than I would have expected, but it's a sturdy and big enough thing so I think it will live long enough to let her grow into it.

February 21The Story: Couldn't resist capitalizing on friend's pottying to ask my daughter of she wanted to potty together with her friend. Then I couldn't resist taking a photo of this cuteness.

February 22The Story: This is what most of the encounters look like. My daughter wildly happy to be touching him or near him and my son considering his situation.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

February 9 The Story: After the finger paint dried, I thought we'd try gluing. I thought it was interesting that she put them in a line, only liked the poms (not the puzzle pieces or the tissue paper), and she ended up taking everything off because she wanted it back in the box.

February 10 Um.......

February 11 The Story: Woke up, saw the book and decided to read alone for a bit.

The Story: Holding hands and "dancing."

February 12-13 The Story: I "misplaced" the camera.

February 14 The Story: My fellas loving each other up....

February 15 The Story: Finally organized the bins, materials and space, so now folks are playing dress up! Something to do with all those scarves, hats, old remotes and more...

February 2 The Story: I made a duck counting activity to go with the beautifully and simply illustrated Eric Carle book 10 Little Rubber Ducks, based on a true story of a rubber ducks that fell overboard and floated at sea till they landed on distant shores. I had her finger paint with blue and green to make a sea just like Eric Carle's, which I laminated. Then I made little ducks, numbered them and stuck on little velcro dots for them.

February 3 The Story: All dressed up to go outside. Obviously her dad and I care a great deal about well put together and coordinated outfits.

February 4 The Story: Making a robot....this is difficult to figure out how to do we decided....

February 5 The Story: She decided to lotion herself up with guacamole. Until this moment, I forgot the days of baby-led solids when food was pure play...

February 7 The Story: My daughter is way into blankets. Any size piece of any cloth can be a blanket. With actual blankets, she lays them on the floor and spreads them out, flattening out every wrinkle. Pulling a corner here and then oh! Straightening the other side. Over and over. So it happens that having her help me set up the bean bin means a good number of minutes straightening out the blanket. Here she is, close to finished.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

January 26The first full orange I've given her to peel. Why didn't I do this sooner?

January 27

The only (clear) picture I took due to the hubbub of my parents coming to visit.

January 28

As I said, my parents came for a visit to see the new baby. My brother came up to see us all, too. I got out the bean bin I made for my daughter. My dad, brother and daughter had so much fun playing with the beans. They looked for the buttons and their buried hands. They stirred them around. They talked about the buttons going out to dinner (my daughter's idea, of course). The buttons were worms, you see, swimming in a sea of beans. My brother asked my daughter what are the worms going to eat? She thought about it but said she didn't know. "Beans!" he said. We all had a good laugh. My daughter chuckled along, too. You know, because everyone else was.

January 29

A lot of babywearing going on over here. It's been helpful to start putting my son in a sling after a good feeding to get a nap. My daughter remembered that short months ago, she was in a sling. (I wore her in this sling -- Boba -- on my back when I was 6 months pregnant and felt comfortable.) She says she wants to be a monkey and go in the sling. This is toddler speak for back carry. I'm waiting for the day I have the both of them in slings....maybe it'll make it into Mamatography.....

January 30

Snowdrops! In January! We saw these just before we entered the house after an awesome investigatory walk to see what the noise was from outside. (Turned out it was tree trimmers, who weren't particularly neighborly and were done making noise, turning a giant dead tree into mulch. Oh, and she insisted on wearing these red cowboy boots (completely wrong for the task). I let her without much fuss after telling her it was cold. After a while she said randomly when walking, "I feel happy. I love my red boots sooo much. Ruuuuuuuunnn!!!" Then she took off running in those ridiculous "walking shoes" for half a block.

January 31

Ummm......I forgot to get out the camera. I blame my parents. : )

I'm donating this picture to the next day's space because our first finger painting experience was absolutely the coolest.

February 1

I don't know why it's taken so long to set up finger painting, but we certainly did enjoy this! These are favorites just because of the sheer joy and wonder that so naturally shapes her expression.

There's the "Oh my goodness, a surprise, what experience could possibly await me, I love painting, let me get to it, overwhelmed" grimace....

The "oh my goodness this is on my fingers, cold, wet, squishy....!!!!"

The "I get to paint! WITH MY HANDS!!!!!"

The completely serious, focused face of a toddler sticking her hand in goopy, gooey paint for the first time, slowly, slowly....

Thursday, February 2, 2012

The Story: When my daughter sleeps, the little pigtail holders that hold her hair come out. The combination of sleeping and the shape of the hair after it's been put up wet and dried that way makes morning hair hilarious some days.

The Story: My daughter wanted to take a picture. Of her brother. No, of her bowls. Looks like bowls it was.....and her brother.....

The Story: Blocks with daddy......

January 20 The Story: My daughter often wants to climb trees, usually when she sees a tall straight tree trunk with no limbs to grab. I oblige her, but then she wants help. We haven't made it up a tree yet.

January 21The Story: A few months ago, my daughter graduated from a wavy cutter to a butterknife. The best is the knife her size. Knife-cutting is serious business, from the look on her face.

The Story: Snow! The first (for real) snow of the season fell, and my daughter wanted to go out. She went out after the two blizzards last year, but this was her first snow really. She loved the crunch of the snow (thanks to the freezing rain on the tail end of the storm).

We took a little trip around the block and found a snow hill. (Small, but she's into hills.) She was frustrated at first, but triumphantly made it to the top.

Isn't it a joyful feeling to crunch crunch crunch away?

January 22 The Story: I made it to the end of the day without taking any pictures. Then I realized I was doing what I spend most if my day doing: holding my son, his head on my shoulder. I took a picture. He is one month old today......why do they grow so fast?

January 23 The Story: My husband went out for a few hours, and I had both the kids. We were stuck inside because it was cold and rainy and slushy, and I didn't want to take baby out in that weather. I decided to throw together a sensory bin I've been thinking about for a while. I got black beans, black-eyed peas, some colored buttons, some spoon implements and cup-like containers and let me daughter go to work. She spent two hours playing with this all kinds of ways--took all the buttons out, poured, dumped, stirred, ran beans through hands and fingers, buried things, and even decided to "lie down" inside it. Good times with simple stuff.

The Story: I know these are supposed to be my photos, but I'm just having fun starting the photography journey with my daughter. She took some more pictures today and is definitely learning to hold the camera so she can capture what she wants (in this case her baby brother and her dump truck). Sometimes the picture is even clear!

January 24 The Story: Pretty chill day. I got out the wooden vegetables, knife and cutting board a friend got my daughter long ago. (Seems strange when she can now cut for real to some degree.) She had fun making us "soup." Of course it was delicious! (Oh, and that's our cat, Jasper looking on.)

January 25 I love babywearing, but it's taken some time to work things out. (Sometimes I need to be able to nurse at a moment's notice!) I have tried pretty much all my slings. I do need to try the ring sling, but so far my Kozy Carrier has been the go-to choice. Love keeping this baby close, but it's nice to have two hands!

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A Living Family is both an online community and a local Meetup for the Philadelphia area with leaders in Philly and North NJ. Our hope is to provide support for parents interested in and practicing natural, traditional and gentle parenting ideas and living. Our foundation is trust: in our bodies, our intuition and our children.